According to a study by Texas REALTORS, the top cities for relocation statewide are Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin. However, Texans are being priced out of the Dallas housing market by an influx of Californians.
“The people that are moving into the Dallas area come with cash, and they can pay whatever they want to for a house,” said Russell Berry, chairman of Texas REALTORS. “They don’t have to get an appraisal. They don’t have to be pre-approved. These buyers are arriving mostly from California, and they get into bidding wars. When the price goes up, that’s the comparable price that can be used for the next house that’s sold in that neighborhood.”
Texas REALTORs, in its 2021 Relocation Report, found that more than 500,000 people moved to Texas in recent years.
“Dallas is a big winner in the relocation business,” Berry told Dallas Express. “Most metropolitan areas in Texas are doing pretty good, but Dallas and Houston, specifically Dallas, came out on top with more people moving to the Dallas metroplex than anywhere in Texas.”
According to Berry, a full-time realtor, the average house price in Dallas is $323,000, which is up from $275,000 two years ago.
“We’ve seen double-digit appreciation in just a matter of months,” he said. “Three to 5% a year was good. Now, we’re seeing double digits in three months. It’s crazy, and it’s pricing people out of the Dallas [housing] market.”
The report further determined that people being priced out of the Dallas housing market are relocating to Fort Worth. Specifically, some 3,865 chose to live in Tarrant County after having lived in Dallas.
“It’s really affordability,” Berry said. “The further you get out from the city center, the better it’s going to be for pricing. Fort Worth is a little bit less than Dallas as far as median house price. There’s nowhere in Dallas really to build. So, developers are building on the North Tarrant County side, out in the Saginaw area and in south Tarrant County. There are newer houses being built out there but not nearly as many that need to be built.”
According to Texas REALTORS data, about 8,981 Texans traded Dallas for Denton County, and 3,522 opted to relocate to Collin County. That is over 12,000 Texans relocating out of the Dallas housing market.
“The one thing that this pandemic has taught us is people don’t have to live near work any longer and that’s what Dallas was always known as is the city center where you would have to come into the city and work but now companies are telling employees to work from home or come in once or twice a week,” Berry added. “If they’re going to be able to do that, they can live wherever they want to, which is why it’s more attractive now for people to live an hour away in Denton or even an hour and a half away in Collin County away from where they actually have to work because they no longer have to come into Dallas.”